OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS

The two Old Testament texts for the Fifth Sunday in Lent provide stark contrasts between death and life.  Ezekiel 37:1-14 is the eerie story of the dried and wind-blown bones that spring back into life as though we were watching a movie backwards. Psalm 130 is a penitential prayer.

Ezekiel 37:1-14 - "Can Bones Be Brought Back to Life?"
Setting.  The primary setting of the book of Ezekiel is the exile. The prophetic oracles and visions in the book are addressed to a displaced people, who have lost their land, livelihood, national identity, and, most seriously of all, their faith. Their God, after all, had promised them life in the land as the fulfillment of the salvation that was wrought out of the Exodus. In exile they now find themselves to be a wilderness people. Un…